Fire guts house at Keartons, leaves mother and children homeless

A RESIDENT of Keartons, Barrouallie Coleen Lovelace lost all her material belongings in a fire on Monday December 3.

Four of Lovelace’s children were reportedly at home at the time of the blaze which razed the home despite the efforts of residents who turned up with buckets and drums of water to help put out the early afternoon fire.

The flames had already consumed one family’s home and were threatening an adjoining house.

SEARCHLIGHT has learnt that Lovelace was not at the house when the fire started; she was out for her younger daughter’s birthday which left her 17 year old daughter to respond to the fire and protect her siblings.

Remains of a mattress that was burnt

Lovelace told SEARCHLIGHT that she was not sure exactly how the fire started but was told by her daughter that she met a mattress burning in the bedroom after smelling smoke.

“My children stated that they were inside of the living room watching TV and she said she smelled the smoke…she decided to go and check to see,” Lovelace recounted.

“She went into the bedroom and said she met the whole bedroom on fire.Well it wasn’t on fire like that, so she tried outing it, so she said she went and get some water and try and out it and it just kept blazing more, so she told her brothers to come out the house and they came out and got help and basically, they still couldn’t get to save anything.”

Lovelace said her daughter does not handle pressure well and was extremely traumatized, and even fainted twice during the crisis.

“In her little mind, [she thought] she could out it. That’s why it escalated because nobody knew; she was trying to out it before… because she was frightened that I would have retaliate if I come and meet somewhere burnt so she didn’t expect that it would have [taken] over the whole place so it’s like she was traumatized. “ Lovelace said further that her daughter sent her brothers outside and began to throw water on the fire but the more she tried to control it, the bigger the fire got and that is when their aunt on the other side of the house noticed.

“Their aunty round there noticed the fire blazing up by the window and she started cussing them to tell them to come out the house, but my daughter was still in there trying to out it, so they had to get her out and when she got out, she was still there holding on the dog for dear life…

“She was trying to save the dogs because they’re hooked on the animals so they didn’t want to go and leave them so she was there, place burning down and she was saving the dogs.”

One resident claimed however that the dogs are what hindered them from controlling the fire as the dogs were attacking them when they went onto the property.

“When we started to go in the yard, me and three of my other friends to help, the girl had this dog in the yard with a long chain running out after people to bite you, so that was the hold up in the back (Lovelace’s home) because there was a lot of fire in the back,” he said.

Daphne Layne, who lives directly above Lovelace’s home said at first she thought the smoke was from garbage that someone was burning, but when she noticed that it was actually fire spreading she immediately started throwing water down on the house from her drum.

“I called my brother and tell him come help me, come help me…so he came out and started helping me and then I started calling help, help, because I needed help, me alone couldn’t do it because it was a lot of smoke,” Layne said.

Residents claimed that the fire tender which responded had to travel from Kingstown and by the time it got to Barrouallie the fire had already been quenched.

“People around is who basically put out the fire…”, Lovelace commented.

She said had there been a fire tender nearby the situation would have been different.

The house on the front adjoining that occupied by Lovelace was charred on the roof but flames had crept through a hole in their roof and fell on a mattress burning it and rendering it useless.

At the time that SEARCHLIGHT visited, the children were staying with a neighbour.